Hurricane Irma causes Nursing Home Deaths in Hollywood, Florida

Hurricane Irma caused massive devastation in Florida this past week, and the death toll has increased. There were several calls to 911, due to nursing home resident incidents; such as, a cardiac arrest, and another elderly patient with breathing issues. The hurricane caused many power outages in the area; therefore, as a result, the nursing home within Hollywood, Florida, was without any air conditioner. The heat caused the nursing home patients to endure ailments, and suffer from heat related issues within the establishment. The Rehabilitation center did not have any generators after the outage. Thus, according to Florida Power and Light, nursing homes in Florida are currently not listed as a “critical facility” in their county, so generators are not provided in case of an emergency. In addition to lacking suitable resources for power outages, a third attempt in placing an emergency phone call finally prompted rescue crews to arrive. However, it was ultimately too late, and 8 nursing home residents died. There were many unfortunate factors involved with this tragedy. The Rehabilitation center claims that they responded in a timely manner after the power outage, and stated that they contacted “Florida Power and light,” yet they allegedly refused to “speed up its response to senior living facilities.” According to authorities, the remaining 145 patients were transported to the hospital.